The marina places circulating de-icers at the bottom of our slips to keep ice from forming. Temperatures dropped to the single digits in January and ice was soon forming. It seemed to work at first.
Eventually the de-icer at the bottom of the slip had failed. The power cord was rubbing on the dock, chaffed the insulation away causing a short. The marina didn’t keep a close eye on things over the winter.
The Sailmaster outboard included in the deal has an extra long shaft (25″) which always left part of the lower unit in the water. When the de-icer stopped working ice formed all around the boat. This caused no harm to the boat but the engine had to be removed. It should have been taken off two weeks earlier before the cold snap.
The ice was strong enough to support me, but just to be safe I worked from the raft just to be safe. After chipping the ice away from around the propeller, the lower unit was free and the outboard could be removed. Although it was frightfully cold, the solid ice actually made the job easier. Muscling the engine to the dock from a dinghy on the water by myself would have been a chore.